support. appreciate it. ♪ the news tonight is far from over. the news edge at 11:00 starts right now. i'm will thomas. thank you for joining us. some wicked weather hit across the metro region tonight. one place that suffered a lot of damage was arlington. fox five crews following the reports of damage. bob barnard starts off our coverage from arlington tonight. >> reporter: it's been a rough night and tomorrow will be no vacation. behind me here, a typical example of what we're seeing. this is rock springs road and it's closed because of the fallen tree and power lines down. thousands are in the dark tonight. it came and went quickly, but the storm left its mark. it's all hands on deck in front of will and ellen anthony's

house on north 26th street in arlington. >> i'm from texas, originally. i've seen tornadoes before. this looked like tornado's wind. i told my wife get to the basement. i heard thump, thump, like branches hitting the roof. we hung out in the basement. we came out, and all this was down here covering half the street, three-quarters of the street. we're trying to clear the street. >> reporter: around the corner, north wakefield street is impassable. trees down all over the place. the back yard of a family out of town for the weekend, a whopper of a tree landed on the house. there's substantial roof damage here. over there, that's a chunk of earth uprooted by another fallen tree. >> it looked like a microburst touched down here in the north arlington area and went, i guess east, maybe about a mile or two through country club hills and tore up a lot of trees. >> reporter: chris is a tree expert. it will be a busy night for his crews. >> we're going to start gearing up now and we'll be out tonight

and probably first thing tomorrow morning. >> reporter: as the storm was approaching the area, police evacuated the national mall. >> i grew up in wyoming, when they say thunderstorm, i don't want to mess around with that. i just moved to d.c., and i was looking forward to this. but there's always next year. >> reporter: thousands had shown up for tonight's dress rehearsal for the concert. >> disappointed. >> reporter: did you have a good seat? >> i did. >> this is our yearly tradition to come down the night before and celebrate. it's a washington tradition. without the tourists. >> reporter: the skies darkened, lightning flashed, the winds started howling. mall goers started running for cover. from the safety of our live truck, we rode out the worst of the storm. it was a pounding rain, intense for nearly half an hour. in the city, we saw this traffic light knocked down. later, outside jane olmsted's

home in arlington, a mess of tree branches. inside, no power. >> i heard and felt the pop of that tree going, and i was in my kitchen where that big window is. i hot footed it into the hall fast as i could go. it missed my car. >> reporter: a night of fireworks this year on the 3rd of july. this year just one example of the many power issues in northern virginia tonight. as for that dress rehearsal for the fourth of july concert on the mall, it went on as planned, but without an audience. police deciding to close the west front of the u.s. capitol tonight as a precaution, because of our uncertain weather. in arlington, virginia, bob barnard, fox five news. staying on that theme, thousands of people are expected on the national mall tomorrow. the national park service says take metro to get there. they'll be open from 7:00 a.m. until midnight. for security reasons, the smithsonian station closed most of the day.

you can use it to go home once the fireworks are over. for more details on metro and where you can find the entry points for the mall, go to our web site, myfoxdc.com. look under hot topics. standoff over the debt ceiling has been going on for weeks. now with one month until the deadline, still no agreements. at least one republican senator is taking shots at the administration tonight. >> reporter: a verbal slap today at the obama administration from a key republican who says the president has no constitutional advantage in the current debt showdown. treasury secretary invoked the 14th amendment recently, apparently attempting to cast doubt on -- here's reaction from senator cornyn. >> that's crazy talk. it's not acceptable for congress and the president not to do their job and say somehow

the president has the authority to then basically do this by himself. we ought to sit down and work together. >> reporter: meantime, talk of reaching a mini deal, with a limited time span. former bill clinton saying last night, it's among the possibilities going forward. he said in part, i hope they will make a mini deal. there are some spending cuts they agree on, and president obama can take those and get an extension of the debt ceiling for six or eight months. senator cornyn didn't necessarily dismiss that idea. >> the problem with a mini deal, we have a maxi problem. and big problems won't go away if you cut a mini deal. it delays the moment of truth. >> reporter: congress shorted its recess to deal with the deadline of august 2nd for raising the debt limit. three senators in afghanistan tonight john mccain

and lindsey graham and joe lieberman. the senators say they're concerned the plans will undermine afghan morale and make it more difficult to beat back taliban forces. >> i know there is some concern among the afghans about the pace of the beginning of withdrawal of our surge troops. but we have tried to reassure everyone that the commitment that america has made, and the international community has made, to a free and independent afghanistan is strong and steadfast and lasting. >> senator mccain said some areas of afghanistan including kandahar, are definitely safer. the news edge is everywhere at 11:00. a fire at a church sends one firefighter to the hospital and causes thousands of dollars in damage. the firefighter was hurt while batting the flames.

flames were seen shooting through the roof. authorities believe it was caused by a lightning strike. a fire gutted a straussberg, virginia church. happened saturday evening. parishers held services on the building's front lawn today. the outside of the building was not destroyed in the fire. the church says they'll rebuild. one person killed last night after getting hit by two cars. police say the man was intoxicated and fell crossing central avenue near ritchie road. police say he was hit by two cars, both of them stopped. an offduty metro police officer was the driver in one of the cars. the man walking died on the scene. neither of the drivers face charges. a blind deaf dog goes on a journey to take hundreds of miles away from home. neighborly advice helped reunite the dog with his family. gwen? nice story. we've got plenty of storms across the area that kick through tonight, and it's not over for some of our viewers. we'll have a look at what you can expect and the all important holiday forecast lt

plenty of rainfall and lots of cloud to ground lightning as well. most of this moving to the southeast about 20 to 30 miles per hour. still not in the clear here for our viewers to the south and far northwest. we'll see temperatures very much on the mild side. 72degrees at dulles this hour. 75 at d.c. 72 baltimore. 74degrees in annapolis. the frontal system where the storms are firing up will move across the region tonight, and will stall to the south across central virginia and then tomorrow we're going to see storms along the line of that and ahead of it. it looks like the majority of the storms will be to the south and west of d.c. tomorrow. there's a 20% chance of, very slight chance, that we won't see a late afternoon evening storm in the district. let's keep our fingers crossed for the celebrations. to our neighbors to the south and west, they'll have to deal

with some of that. tomorrow, a warm day. air quality at code orange, so be careful. few storms possibly south and west. temperatures in the low 90s. beach is seeing temperatures in the 80s and low 90s as well. some thunderstorms everywhere. cape may is the exception. a chance of storms at all our other beaches. plenty of sunshine tuesday. unsettled wednesday through friday. hopefully you'll have a great fourth of july. thank you. we are taking the news edge off tonight with a homecoming month in the making. a 16-year-old dog is finally home. after 2 months which took him 1500 miles away. his owner says he got out of the gate one day and never came home. the family didn't think they would see him again. the dog is blind and deaf. a neighbor suggested the family check just one more shelter.

cody was there. the dog is back home, two months, 1500 miles away. unbelievable. time to check with lindsay murphy on tonight's nissan sports xtra. i'm sure it's action packed. >> yeah. i love that story, too, by the way. who does the nfl lockout impact the most? i have that answer, plus jason werth is the latest on being hit by a pitch, and michael morse, as well. and highlights from the mystics, and orioles. will? >> i'm glad you liked our story. would you tell me if you didn't? >> anything with a happy ending is good. >> that's it for us. fox five is always on, myfoxdc.com. sports xtra is coming your way in two minutes.